Porkulus: The Lobbyist Full Employment Act

posted at 12:15 pm on March 30, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

The economy is crashing. Unemployment is higher than anytime in the last 26 years. Barack Obama has promised to save and create jobs, and according to the Washington Post, he’s succeeding — but in a peculiar way:

Last month, just before Valentine’s Day, business at Holland & Knight was so slow that the law firm laid off more than 240 lawyers and staff, victims of the economic downturn that has dented Washington’s reputation for being recession-proof.

But one area of the multi-service firm was thriving. Rich Gold, head of the firm’s public policy and regulation practice, was hiring more than a dozen lobbyists, bringing his federal lobbying team to about 70, every one of them scrambling to stay on top of provisions and changes in the mammoth economic recovery package that was barreling through Congress. They were handling about 240 clients, including 50 new ones, all eager to win a portion of the stimulus that President Obama wanted passed. …

Put another way, Main Street’s gloom has been K Street’s boon.

The $787 billion stimulus package — along with an ambitious new federal budget, bank bailouts and the beginning of a regulatory overhaul — has succeeded in stimulating the economy along Washington’s avenue of influence. In the months since the November election, more than 2,000 cities, companies and associations have hired lobbyists to help them push their agendas on Capitol Hill and at the White House, easily outpacing such numbers after the previous two elections, according to disclosure records.

Nearly every industry and every corner of the country has an issue, especially with so much money at stake.

Irony alert! Obama campaigned on limiting lobbyist influence, and imposed a lobbyist ban at the White House so onerous that he’s been forced to issue dozens of waivers to it. His stimulus team promulgated an unconstitutional restriction on communications with lobbyists that looks more like a scheme to avoid prostitution entrapment. Yet K Street hasn’t been limited at all — in fact, they’re positively energized.

Why? Government funding attracts lobbyists, and the more there is, the more you’ll get. When government takes taxes out of the pockets of its citizens for the purposes of redistribution, especially on the massive scale of Porkulus, the rewards make it worth hiring people to get some of the money back. As more and more people decide to organize to get their hands on government project money, more and more lobbyists get hired to represent them — and they make more and more connections with politicians in Washington to ensure their success.

If Obama really wanted to eliminate lobbyist influence, he would cut government spending and starve lobbyists out of K Street. That’s why the Republican Revolution went off the rails when Tom DeLay concocted the K Street Project in the mid-1990s, purportedly to create a permanent Republican majority. In order to kiss up to K Street, DeLay and the GOP had to guarantee an increasing flow of government funds as spoils to split for lobbyists and their clients. Obama’s Porkulus simply takes the same approach, magnified exponentially.

The explosion of employment on K Street is ironic … and utterly predictable.

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Ed – enough with the ‘Obama campaigned on…’ articles. Nobody cares, nobody is paying attention, the great Obamessiah now rules our nation and yet we labor here in a futile effort to sway hearts and minds.

Perhaps we can adjust our focus and instead reference the things that Obama is doing well and then maybe the left will like us

This is wonderful, maybe I should get the CT Package (beer/wine stores) association to get into the game, just maybe, my small business can get a few hundred dollars (if the darn dollar will be worth anything). This really sucks and so due politicians.

“Only government,” Obama said, can restore the purchasing power needed to preserve jobs…

Lichtman said. “Obama is saying government is the solution and, in fact, the only real solution to the crisis we’re experiencing today. It’s not just a matter of fixing the economy. It’s a matter of fundamentally moving the economy in a new direction. And government, not private enterprise, has to take the lead.”

Slightly OT: Transparency was a big old promise from Obama. I heard this AM on fox, the network attorneys filed suit against the Fed and Treasury to see full reports on TARP which they won. When documents were finally handed over, they were redacted significantly. Talk about Nixon and the tapes. There were pages where more was blacked out than visible. The reports had gloomy predictions on AIG followed by more perky outlooks released to the general public. Full report is supposed to be on later today.

Slightly OT: Transparency was a big old promise from Obama. I heard this AM on fox, the network attorneys filed suit against the Fed and Treasury to see full reports on TARP which they won. When documents were finally handed over, they were redacted significantly. Talk about Nixon and the tapes. There were pages where more was blacked out than visible. The reports had gloomy predictions on AIG followed by more perky outlooks released to the general public. Full report is supposed to be on later today.

msmveritas on March 30, 2009 at 1:41 PM

Wait, what the heck is secret material in reports on a back bailout plan? I can kind of get it if it is Executive privilege of keeping received opinions secret (see Chainey and his energy meeting), but how would that show up in what you are talking about?

Wait, what the heck is secret material in reports on a back bailout plan? I can kind of get it if it is Executive privilege of keeping received opinions secret (see Chainey and his energy meeting), but how would that show up in what you are talking about?

Count to 10 on March 30, 2009 at 2:01 PM

Right I thought about Cheyney too. It seemed from the discussion this was pretty blatant redactions that the Fox attorneys and the reporter found bizarre. I think the full report is supposed to be on later today. I think they could piece some of the information together despite the redactions. It should be interesting. BTW, both Treasury and Fed fought release of this report with a vengeance.

I wonder if street walkers and street gangs are amongst the clientele? Ever notice how when the government gives out ‘free money’ be it for 9-11 victims, Katrina victims, whatever, the crooks (non-elected ones I mean here) come out of the woodwork and manage to get a piece of the pie?